Shs200b ID deal illegal - PPDA
PPDA officials appear before legislators yesterday. Photo by Geoffrey Sseruyange
What you need to know:
In search of truth. The committee is expected to present its findings in Parliament in two weeks time.
The public procurement regulator yesterday dismissed the Shs219 billion National Identity Cards deal awarded to a Germany firm as illegal.
This revelation comes two days after a government intelligence report indicated that the firm is being run by ex-convicts implicated in bidding fraud and other crimes in South Africa and Germany.
In a presentation to the Defence Committee, which is investigating allegations of corruption in the deal, the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority officials told MPs that Ministry of Internal Affairs awarded the deal to a Germany firm, Muhlbauer Technology Group without following the established procurement procedures, making the deal illegal.
“PPDA was not involved in this transaction; the decision to go for single soucring was taken at a political meeting in State House,” Mr Benson Turamye, who represented the PPDA executive director at the meeting, said.
The Committee heard that after PPDA rejected a plan to hand-pick Mühlbauer, a State House meeting paraded the project as a security matter in order to go for unauthorised classified procurement.
“We did not approve this project. They gave us reasons for single sourcing but we rejected them because they were not convincing. We told them to use competitive bidding because the amount of money involved in this deal was too much but this was not done,” he added.
In this transaction, Mr Turamye said PPDA was sidelined contrary to the PPDA Act. “Because we were put aside, this is why Parliament is now investigating this matter. We hope the law is there to catch up with how the whole transaction was handled. I am sure even the auditor general is going to question this matter.”
Mr Turamye told the committee that PPDA handled two requests from Ministry of Internal Affairs with regard to the procurement process for the National ID project. The first request was with regard to the single sourcing of the provider, Mahlbauer, while the second was with regard to the amendment of the contract.
On March 11, 2010, Dr Stephen Kagoda, the Internal Affairs permanent secretary, wrote to PPDA asking for a deviation to use single sourcing which was rejected.
In his response, the former PPDA boss, Mr Edgar Agaba, wrote: “The procurement of the National Security System should be subjected to an open and competitive procurement process in order to ensure transparency and value for money.”
He added: “In the event that the above position is not acceptable to your Entity and you decide as Accounting Officer to precede…you should take full responsibility…”
Asked whether PPDA officials ever attended a meeting with President Museveni to discuss Muhlbauer deal, Mr Turamya said the former Board chairperson, Mr James Kahoza, and former PPDA chief executive Agaba attended a meeting at State House on March 15, 2010.
In this meeting, he described as “political” Mr Turamya said Mr Kahoza informed the President and others that the Authority could not approve classified procurement which had not complied with the legal procedures stipulated under the PPDA Act.
The committee this week received a report from External Security Organisation which indicated that the Germany firm that took over the ID project is run by ex-convicts.
Bad deal
The company was expected to deliver 3.5 million IDs by December 2010 and at least 21 million by the end of the project in June next year, but the firm last week released only 400 IDs, a year after it was hurriedly recruited outside official procurement methods and given billions of shillings.
